The Bride of the Nile — Complete eBook

CHAPTER X.

All Katharina’s sympathy with Heliodora had
died finally in the course of the past, moonless night.
She had secretly accompanied her, with her maid and
an old deaf and dumb stable-slave, to a soothsayer—­for
there still were many in Memphis, as well as magicians
and alchemists; and this woman had told the young
widow that her line of life led to the greatest happiness,
and that even the wildest wishes of her heart would
find fulfilment. What those wishes were Katharina
knew only too well; the probability of their accomplishment
had roused her fierce jealousy and made her hate Heliodora.

Heliodora had gone to consult the sorceress in a simple
but rich dress. Her peplos was fastened on the
shoulder, not by an ordinary gold pin, but by a button
which betrayed her taste for fine jewels, as it consisted
of a sapphire of remarkable size; this had at once
caught the eye of the witch, showing her that she
had to deal with a woman of rank and wealth.
She had taken Katharina, who had come very plainly
dressed, for her companion or poor friend, so she
had promised her no more than the removal of certain
hindrances, and a happy life at last, with a husband
no longer young and a large family of children.

The woman’s business was evidently a paying
one; the interior of her house was conspicuously superior
to the wretched hovels which surrounded it, in the
poorest and most squalid part of the town. Outside,
indeed, it differed little from its neighbors; in
fact; it was intentionally neglected, to mislead the
authorities, for witchcraft and the practice of magic
arts were under the penalty of death. But the
fittings of the roofless centre-chamber in which she
was wont to perform her incantations and divinations
argued no small outlay. On the walls were hangings
with occult figures; the pillars were painted with
weird and grewsome pictures; crucibles and cauldrons
of various sizes were simmering over braziers on little
altars; on the shelves and tables stood cups, phials,
and vases, a wheel on which a wryneck hopped up and
down, wax images of men and women—­some
with needles through their hearts, a cage full of
bats, and glass jars containing spiders, frogs, leeches,
beetles, scorpions, centipedes and other foul creatures;
and lengthways down the room was stretched a short
rope walk, used in a Thracian form of magic.
Perfumes and pungent vapors filled the air, and from
behind a curtain which hid the performers came a monotonous
music of children’s voices, bells, and dull
drumming.

Medea, so the wise woman was called, though scarcely
past five and forty, harmonized in appearance with
this strange habitation, full as it was of objects
calculated to rouse repulsion, dread, and amazement.
Her face was pale, and her extraordinary height was
increased by a mass of coal-black hair, curled high
over a comb at the very top of her head.

At the end of the first visit paid her by the two
young women, who had taken her by surprise, so that
several things were lacking which on the second occasion
proved to be very effective in the exercise of her
art, she had made Heliodora promise to return in three
days’ time. The young widow had kept her
word, and had made her appearance punctually with
Katharina.